The Visitor Journey
Integrating a Visitor Journey
In deploying a digital ecosystem we must carefully consider both the available digital and physical channels and touch points for visitor interaction and how a visitor journey might be constructed from them.
Photo by John Chiodo
“Visitors expect a single unified experience across all their interactions with you, a continuity and consistency of experience, information relevant to the context, and a seamless transition or handoff from one channel to another, whether that be digital or physical…. This expectation requires Museums to think differently when initiating digital projects. It requires Museums to think about the larger ecosystem that these digital initiatives exist in.”
— Catherine Devine, “The Museum Digital Experience: Considering the Visitor’s Journey”
Interactions Within Your Overall Ecosystem
Analogous to natural ecosystems, a thriving digital/physical ecosystem is interconnected - made up of a system of functional relationships and interactions between its components.
Any particular journey a visitor might construct from your institutional offerings is dependent upon these interactions, stringing together a combination of channels and touch points from your digital/physical ecosystem.
Photo by Brian Asare on Unsplash
A hypothetical visitor journey through your ecosystem
A marketing effort (1) creates awareness of a museum’s new museum initiative,
the user drops in on the museum website (2) to learn more,
this leads them to streaming content (3) of interest to them,
which is compelling enough for the user to try a virtual visit (4) out at the museum.
Based on their virtual experience the user wishes to visit the museum in person (5),
after which they post their impressions on social media (6).
Wishing to delve a little deeper the user next registers for some online programming (7).
Later revisiting the website (8) the visitor learns about an opportunity to participate in the development of an experimental exhibit (9).
They are not ready to commit but now have a had several mutually reinforcing experiences with the museum and the beginning of an ongoing relationship.
Factors to Consider
In order to facilitate a more seamless and fulfilling journey for the visitor it is important to address the factors that affect what a visitor chooses to do at any point along their journey, why, and from where.
The above diagram is derived from “The Museum Digital Experience: Considering the Visitor’s Journey” by Catherine Devine, Microsoft, USA